You, yes you, when you graduated from high school, were more prepared to major in education than most other majors. This is because you already have 12 years of experience with education under your belt. You’ve been immersed in the culture of schooling for your whole life.
Smagorinsky (2011) presents an elegant explanation as to why teachers continue to employ traditional, teacher-centered, lecture-driven instruction when research recommends more progressive, constructivist, student-centered, experiential pedagogies. He argues, “that the issue of the persistence of authoritarian patterns of teaching and learning is a function of the culture of schooling, a culture embedded in 4000 years of stone and seemingly impervious to real, systemic change” (Smagorinsky, 2011, p. 78).
Here is a brief accounting of Smagorinksy’s thinking about why education is slow to change. (For the full argument read the chapter on The Culture of Schooling in his book.)
…the deep processing of students’ conception of schooling is established early and thus powerfully (Craik & Lockhart, 1972) 83
A teacher starts learning to be one when they first enter school as a child.
I approach this problem by going through the process through which people, particularly teachers, become acculturated to authoritarian schooling and questioning the degree to which even the most passionately progressive teacher education program can produce fundamental changes in teacher candidates’ thinking as they transition from their generally authoritarian school and university experiences as students to their brief exposure to alternatives in teacher education courses. From this course work they immediately cycle back, often concurrent with their university preparation in progressive teaching into the very settings that for so long socialized them to authoritarian conceptions of teaching and learning. 80
It can be very hard to impose newer, progressive ideas of teaching over well-known, often loved ways of teaching.
Faculties, then, tend to reproduce themselves by hiring people who will perpetuate their values; and the pool from which they draw their candidates is filled with people who are inclined to oblige. 94
The result for the workforce is a profession more likely to be filled by those who embrace authoritarian traditions than those who seek alternatives. 95
It is hard for new ideas to displace cultural norms. A person has a hard time even waking up to understanding the culture they were raised in; it is so powerful in molding who they’ve become. There’s a very strong desire to hold on to what you know, to stay on the path. This is one reason I’m drawn to alternative ways of educating, rather than trying to change the traditional school.
Off the Beaten Track 